The Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (known by its Spanish acronym, CEFAA), is responsible for investigating any unexplained aerial phenomena within Chilean air space.

While the witnesses to the eerie phenomenon at first decided to keep the UFO sighting a secret, the photos taken by one of the technicians come to light when the photographer showed the pictures to the chief engineer of the mine who eventually passed the info on to CEFAA.

So far the government has been unable to explain what exactly was floating above the mine on that day in April as all metrological phenomena has been ruled out along with any experimental aircraft, planes, weather balloons or anything else that could appear as a floating disc.

The disc was believed to be between 16 and 32 feet in diameter and brilliantly colored. Witnesses said that it appeared to be under intelligent control.

One problem for the authorities trying to determine what was floating around the skies in northern Chile is that the photographers are unwilling to talk about what they saw.

"The witnesses were not willing to cooperate," Lay said. "We tried to contact them, and we got no reply. So we treated the material just as we have treated several others of the same or similar nature: We file them for future reference or comparison purposes. That's all we can do in this case."

Most experts looking at the photo agree that whatever it is in the sky is not the normal hoax that tends to crop up with UFO conspiracy theorists.

"This is clearly not a normal thing seen in the sky (bird, plane, cloud, etc.),” retired U.S. Navy physicist Bruce Maccabee told the Huffington Post. "That makes it either the real thing - UFO - or a hoax, and it doesn't appear to be a hoax. Although the inability to question witnesses does reduce the credibility. Certainly, this case is worthy of further study."